State v. Urbina

Downloading child pornography from an online peer-to-peer network constitutes "knowing duplication" of those materials and, in cases of encouraging child sex abuse, whether the "victim" is the State or the child in the image/video is a matter "reasonably in dispute."

Defendant appealed convictions for first-degree encouraging child sex abuse and compelling prostitution, among other convictions based on forensic evidence of child pornography seized from his computer. Defendant contended that the trial court erred by failing to acquit him on the charges of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse, failed to do the same on the charge of compelling prostitution, and that it did not merge the verdicts for encouraging child sexual abuse into a single conviction. The Court affirmed the convictions for encouraging child sex abuse, concluding that Defendant knowingly duplicated the materials when he downloaded them from an online peer-to-peer network, and that whether the "victim" was the State or the child in the image/video was a matter "reasonably in dispute." The Court reversed the conviction for compelling prostitution because it was not sufficiently supported by evidence in the record. Affirmed in part, reversed in part.